Victoria Leigh Blum, professionally known by the stage name Tanya Roberts, is an American
actress known for her role as Julie Rogers on the fifth and final season of Charlie's
Angels and as Midge Pinciotti on That '70s Show.
Early life Blum was born in The Bronx, of Irish and Jewish
descent.
Her father was a fountain pen salesman.
Her parents divorced when she was a teenager.
She lived with her mother in Toronto for several years, where she started formulating a photo
portfolio and laying plans for a career.
At age 15, she left high school and lived for a while hitch-hiking across the United
States.
She eventually returned to New York City and became a fashion and cover model.
After meeting psychology student Barry Roberts, she proposed to him in a subway station and
they were soon married.
While Barry pursued a career as a screenwriter, she began to study at the Actors Studio with
Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen under the name Tanya Roberts.
Acting career 1970s
Her career began as a model in TV ads for Ultra Brite, Clairol and Cool Ray sunglasses.
She played serious roles in the Off-Broadway productions, Picnic and Antigone.
She also supported herself as an Arthur Murray dance instructor.
Her film debut was the 1975 thriller, Forced Entry.
This was followed by the 1976 comedy The Yum-Yum Girls.
In 1977, as her husband was securing his own screenwriting career, the couple moved to
Hollywood.
The following year, Roberts participated in the drama, Fingers.
Roles in the 1979 cult-movie, Tourist Trap, Racket and California Dreaming followed.
Roberts was featured in several television pilots that were not picked up: Zuma Beach;
Pleasure Cove; and Waikiki.
1980s Charlie's Angels
Roberts was chosen in the summer of 1980 from some two thousand candidates to replace Shelley
Hack in the fifth season of the detective television series, Charlie's Angels on ABC.
Roberts played the sultry Julie Rogers, a streetwise fighter who used her fists more
than her gun.
Producers hoped Roberts's sizzling presence would revitalize the show's declining ratings
and regenerate media interest in the series.
Before the season's premiere, Roberts was featured on the cover of People Magazine with
a headline asking if Roberts would be able to save the declining series from cancellation.
Despite the hype Roberts's debut had received, her premiere episode in November 1980 drew
dismal ratings.
The series was thereafter moved to several different timeslots on the broadcast schedule,
but viewership continued to drop as the season progressed.
After just sixteen episodes of a fifth season, the series had drastically slipped to 59th
in the ratings out of just 65 shows and was cancelled in June 1981.
However, producers of the show reported after the show's cancellation, if Roberts had entered
the show the previous season the series would have been back for a sixth season.
Later career Roberts played Kiri in the 1982 film The Beastmaster.
She was featured in a nude pictorial in Playboy to help promote the movie, appearing on that
issue's October 1982 cover.
In 1983 Roberts filmed the Italian-made adventure fantasy film Hearts and Armour, based on the
medieval novel, Orlando Furioso.
She portrayed Velda, a buxom secretary to private detective, Mike Hammer, in the television
movie, Murder Me, Murder You.
The two-part pilot spawned the syndicated television series, Mickey Spillane's Mike
Hammer.
She declined to continue the role in the Mike Hammer series in order to work on her next
project, Sheena: Queen of the Jungle.
The 1984 movie was a box office and critical disaster, garnering her a nomination for "Worst
Actress" at the Razzie Awards.
Roberts subsequently appeared as Bond girl Stacey Sutton, a geologist, in A View to a
Kill.
She again found herself nominated by the critics for a Razzie Award.
Other 1980s films include Night Eyes, an erotic thriller; Body Slam, an action movie set in
the professional wrestling world; and Purgatory, a movie about a woman wrongfully imprisoned
in Africa.
Roberts starred in the 1991 erotic thriller, Inner Sanctum alongside Margaux Hemingway.
In 1992 she played Kay Egan in Sins of Desire.
She appeared on the cable TV series, Hot Line, in 1994; and in the video game, The Pandora
Directive, in 1996.
In 1998 Roberts took the role of Midge Pinciotti on the television sitcom, That '70s Show.
Roberts revealed on E! True Hollywood Story that she left the series in 2001 because her
husband had become terminally ill.
Barry Roberts died in 2006.
Tanya Roberts wrote the foreword to the 2008 book, The Q Guide to Charlie's Angels.
Filmography References
External links Official website
Tanya Roberts at the Internet Movie Database